By: Courtney Yusuf, Sami Kent, Clare Mcglynn, Helen Pidd, Hannah Al-Othman, Rudi Zygadlo
The Guardian’s North of England correspondent Hannah Al-Othman recounts the case of Hugh Nelson, sentenced to 18 years in prison this week for creating child abuse images with AI. Prof Clare McGlynn charts the rise of this material on the web and discusses what can be done to stop it